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We wanted to understand how, exactly, Ardern acted differently than a man when facing down terrorism – if in fact she did.

Our study: Categorizing leadership style

To assess Arden’s “feminine” approach to terrorism, we have compared her rhetoric to that of other world leaders in the immediate aftermath of similar mass shootings – that is, lone wolf attacks that resulted in two or more deaths and were motivated by right-wing ideology.

For each leader, we analyzed every sentence of their immediate post-attack statements – both spoken and written – and noted whether it focused on the perpetrator, the victims, both parties or neither. In total, we coded 314 sentences in this manner.

Men lament victims, too

Arden made headlines after Christchurch for talking about the victims and refusing to say the attacker’s name, denying him notoriety.

We found that all the male leaders in our sample also expressed empathy with the victims and, to a great extent, focused on the dead and injured rather than the perpetrator. Two actually focused their post-attack comments more strongly on the victims than Ardern, who devoted about 40% of her comment to the Christchurch victims.

Nearly 44% of Prime Minister Stoltenberg’s sentences centered on victims, and he did not mention the terrorist at all. Stoltenberg said he was “unable to express with words” the depth of his feelings about the 77 people killed on Utøya island, many of whom were children at summer camp.

President Barack Obama at a memorial service for the United Methodist Church worshipers killed in South Carolina in 2015.AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Both Obama and Trump spoke much more about the criminal investigations underway, the law enforcement response and how their government was handling the situation.

This emphasis on power – and, by implication, the strength of the nation’s leader – appears to be something of a male response to mass shooting. All the men in our sample dedicated at least half of their post-attack reactions to such topics.

Ardern, a woman, was the only leader in our sample who focused more than half of her comments on the human beings involved in the terrorist attack.

When stereotypes work for women

Ardern’s response to terrorism differed, too, in how openly she expressed her sadness.

Ardern, however, has not been judged for crying in Christchurch. Traditional gender roles depict women as “emotional.” Perhaps, in this time of tragedy, social expectations actually worked in her favor.

Jacinda Ardern at a service for the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings in March.Reuters/Edgar Su

Even the Ardern government’s policy responses were arguably driven by empathy. Her government offered to pay funeral costs and made tax-free “survivor grants” available for the partners, children and dependents of the victims.

Research shows that women experience indirect but disproportionate harms when male heads of households die from violence. The survivor grants indicate that Ardern considered women’s specific needs in planning government assistance.

Ardern’s willingness to embrace an openly female leadership style is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, many women have felt the need to adopt traditionally masculine traits to succeed in the male-dominated world of politics.

In doing so, Ardern has showed the world that feminine leadership isn’t just acceptable – it is also, in times of trouble, a powerful force.

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